A weblog by Christopher Carfi, since 2004.

The Rise of the Creators (Mobile Edition)

Some interesting data from Pew. Note that we're not just consumers, but creators thanks to mobile, as evidenced by the photo / video / text growth. Full source is here. Internet access over mobile also is experiencing statistically significant growth. -cfc

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"Cell phone ownership has remained stable over the last year, but users are taking advantage of a much wider range of their phones’ capabilities compared with a similar point in 2009. Of the eight mobile data applications we asked about in both 2009 and 2010, all showed statistically significant year-to-year growth.

This year Pew also asked for the first time about seven additional cell phone activities. Among all cell phone owners:

54% have used their mobile device to send someone a photo or video

23% have accessed a social networking site using their phone

20% have used their phone to watch a video

15% have posted a photo or video online

11% have purchased a product using their phone

11% have made a charitable donation by text message

10% have used their mobile phone to access a status update service such as Twitter"

8 thoughts on “The Rise of the Creators (Mobile Edition)”

It’s interesting how quickly smartphone are changing the way people access and share content. Gartner says the number of mobile devices connecting to the Internet will surpass the number of PCs by 2013.

I’d be a bit more interested in Pew’s usually-excellent research if some recent usability work I did didn’t tell me that most people can’t, for example, distinguish between “text messaging” and “instant messaging” on their phone.

It’s fun to smirk at that from Silicon Valley, but the reality is we’ve forced people into feeling dumb if they can’t make distinctions based on implementation decisions, rather than their goals.

As for the video numbers…really….really? Are there really that many video-capable phones out there relative to “send and receive and email” or “access the Internet,” whatever that’s supposed to mean?

Color me skeptical — not about the overall trend, mind you, but any of these specific numbers.

One of the things I am always fascinated by is the fact that people, in the act of creating, don’t classify themselves in this way. As individuals, we’re quite happy to describe our behaviour rather then label it – so what we are seeing is evidence of a shift in what we do with technology and how it impacts our lifestyle (for work or for pleasure). And because “thinking” follows “behaviour”, we are in fact witnessing something quite profound that is bound to challenge us all at some point in the future.

I’m slightly surprised by these findings; not that people are embracing more features on their phones, but that the spike in accessing the internet wasn’t higher. For anyone who has a smart phone, you spend the majority of your time checking email and browsing the web while using the device. Features like recording videos/taking pictures are almost forgotten. It could be that people with new phones may try out all features in the first 30 days (like recording videos) but quickly focus on other options (like web browsing) over time.